Often I get clients who transform their swimming to get closer to the level of speed or efficiency that their level of fitness warrants. I’m taking the opposite approach right now. I’ve got the stroke (though there’s always something new to change), but I’m changing the body to a different level of fitness, and learning new technical challenges as I do it.

A little background- I’m a former collegiate swimmer who, through overexposure to cold water in Minnesota, got the crazy idea to swim the English Channel. Then I did it again three years later. The Channel is no easy feat, and while it’s advisable to put on some weight to protect against the cold, one should appreciate that putting on weight changes more than just cold tolerance. With a bit more "insulation", my hips were higher in my stroke without any effort, and my legs almost completely shut down as I conserved heat in the upper body. Now, I’m focusing on losing the Channel blubber and remaking myself as a swimmer, and it’s taking a new focus on balance to do so.

To this point, i’ve dropped 30 pounds (I’m a big guy, 6’5"), and am still aiming for more. As I’ve lost that weight, my hips have, unstandably, started to balance lower in the water. I’ve had to focus more on front quadrant timing , leaning with sublety on the lungs, and keeping the arms appropriately low (but not so low that I’m getting extra resistance). I am a bit more conscious now of driving the hips, and that means a sneaky little kick has returned to my stroke. Not one that gets me out of breath, but just a little one to keep the rotation load off of my upper torso.

The funny thing about swimming is that losing a few pounds doesn’t have a huge impact on speed. My running is getting easier and faster by leaps and bounds, but my pacing is barely inching back towards its college speed. Then again, when you train for an English Channel swim, you tend to stay in pretty good swimming shape.

I’ll post about this subject about once a month as I get closer to my competitive swimmer build. For now, it doesn’t hurt to have a little extra on me as the Minnesota winter sets in.